Author Topic: One of my remote stations  (Read 4885 times)

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Offline SLOweather

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One of my remote stations
« on: March 16, 2011, 02:05:11 PM »
Here's a pic of the solar powered station.



It's in a locked, clear front Allied Moulded Products enclosure, sitting on a counter in the bottom floor museum of a refurbished Forest Service Fire Lookout.

The clear door is for advertising and PR. The cabinet is locked just to keep an enterprising college intern on an overnighter from realizing there's an Ethernet connection in there and using it to watch NetFlix on my dime. (low rent plan of 250 megabytes/month)

Originally, it had a low profile hockey puck mobile antenna on it, which worked well for a year or so. Then Verizon started experiencing interference in that sector.

Inside are the WeatherElement data hub, the cellular router, and a reboot timer. I probably don't need the timer anymore. During troubleshooting, Verizon techs kept wanting me to reboot the router when it lost connection. I kept telling them that the router was 75 miles round trip away, on a mountain top, behind 3 locked gates because the rains had made the road impassable. So, when I got up there in Dec. I installed a 12vdc 7 day time programmed to reboot it 2x per day.

As I expected, it made no difference.

Part of the problem may be that, on a 3,200' elevation mountain top, the radiation pattern of the original antenna was above the local cell sites.

Just last month, I got the station down and  installed the stub mast and a small Yagi. Since then, it's been running very well, even though it's inside a block building.

Offline SLOweather

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Re: One of my remote stations
« Reply #1 on: March 17, 2011, 03:29:16 PM »
I pulled a better image of the unit off my camera this morning. It more clearly shows (left to right) the timer, WeatherElement hub, and BlueTree router.

 

Offline Flag

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Re: One of my remote stations
« Reply #2 on: March 17, 2011, 04:40:12 PM »
What stops the interns from fiddling with the console buttons?

Offline SLOweather

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Re: One of my remote stations
« Reply #3 on: March 17, 2011, 06:20:13 PM »
What stops the interns from fiddling with the console buttons?

Nothing... It's their station. I just supplied the interface, connection and web site. If they wanna freak it up, s'OK by me...

Pretty much all one of them does is set the clock occasionally. The rest just look at the display and maybe look at highs and lows etc.

Offline SLOweather

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Re: One of my remote stations
« Reply #4 on: March 17, 2011, 06:33:50 PM »
It's in the bottom story of this lookout...



which is located up there...




Offline DanS

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Re: One of my remote stations
« Reply #5 on: March 17, 2011, 06:49:02 PM »
Is the transmitter on continuous or switched on at intervals? I can imagine that's a big concern running on solar power.

Beautiful mountain image!

Offline SLOweather

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Re: One of my remote stations
« Reply #6 on: March 17, 2011, 06:54:03 PM »
Is the transmitter on continuous or switched on at intervals? I can imagine that's a big concern running on solar power.

Beautiful mountain image!

It's a cellular router, so it only transmits to register on the system, or to send data. Very bursty, not continuous.

When we were up there last month, it was clear enough to see Pismo Dunes and the Pacific Ocean to the west maybe 10 miles away, and also snow on the Sierra Range 100 miles to the east.
« Last Edit: March 17, 2011, 06:58:21 PM by SLOweather »